The rubber track of the invention is especially applicable to excavators, combine harvesters and all vehicles which operate off-road but also need to be able to move on asphalted surfaces. The rubber used for the track prevents damage to an asphalted road surface, as well as being much quieter than metal tracks.
Known-type rubber tracks exhibit longitudinally-aligned vertically-projecting metal rail tracts on an inside surface of the tracks, and partially sunk into the rubber, which the vehicle-bearing wheels run on.
The rail tracts are distanced longitudinally such that when the track winds around the vehicle drive wheels the rail tracts do not interfere one with another.
This leads to a considerable drawback: when the vehicle-bearing wheels run on the rails, the spaces between tracts cause movement irregularities when the vehicle is translated, which are transmitted to the vehicle itself in the form of jumps and starts and small but constant vibrations.
To obviate this drawback, many track manufacturers have in some way done away with the spaces between the tracts of rail, creating what is in effect a constant rolling plane for the vehicle rollers. Japanese Patent no. 2-298296, granted on the 1.11.1990 in the name of Otsu Tire Ltd. is structurally the closest in type to the present invention. The rubber track exhibits aligned metal rails wherein situated between one and a next rail section is a rubber block, which is taller than the rails. When a roller runs off one metal rail tract it comes into contact with the top of the rubber block, compressing it so that it fills the space between the two rails. Thus the running plane of the rollers is constant and continuous and the above-mentioned vibrations are to some extent obviated.
This system undoubtedly functions well, but presents some drawbacks, especially in that the rubber block is completely independent of the rail tracts and therefore behaves like an isolated and independent cylinder, and al so in that it is subject to continuous compressions by the vehicle and is thus exceptionally susceptible to fast wear and breakage at its base. A further drawback is that the independence of the rubber block does not fully guarantee rolling continuity from rail tract to rubber block and vice versa.
The above invention also suffers from accumulations of stones, mud and such inert materials picked up from the work environment, which the vehicle picks up in the interspaces between the rubber blocks and the metal rail tracts.